All Crime Is Personal

Dunblane

Today is the 10th anniversary of the school shooting with the highest child death toll, the Dunblane massacre. For those of you not familiar with Dunblane here is a summary of the massacre from Crime Library…

On March 13, 1996, Thomas Hamilton, 43, left his home at 7 Kent Road in Dunblane, Scotland, with only one thing in mind — murder. At about 9:30 a.m., he drove to the Dunblane Primary School with a pair of pliers, four handguns and more than 700 rounds of ammunition. Once there, he cut the telephone wires on a nearby pole and then proceeded with weapons in hand to a side entrance of the school.

Hamilton burst into the assembly hall, where a class of 5- and 6-year-old children was having gym lessons and opened fire. He first shot at several of the teachers. Hamilton then turned his guns on the frightened children and shot at them as they tried to scramble to safety under chairs and inside closets. Screams echoed through the gymnasium as tiny bodies sunk to the floor in pools of blood.

Hamilton momentarily stepped outside the gym into a hallway where there were other classrooms and open fired again. Several more people were struck down before Hamilton returned to the gym and began shooting again. He then put the gun into his mouth and pulled the trigger. He died instantaneously, leaving behind a ghastly trail of death and devastation.

The brutal rampage left 17 people murdered, including one teacher and 16 children. Another 17 would survive the horrifying incident but be haunted with nightmares for the rest of their lives. The sleepy, rural town was forever changed by the horrors of that day. It was considered one of the deadliest massacres in recent history.

According to the article, no service or memorial is being held as the people of Dunblane would like to forget this tragedy. Also according to the article, 254 children have been shot in schools worldwide including the terrorist attack in Beslan in 2004.